Legends: Garrett Augustus Morgan

He spent much of his life devising ways to change our lives for the better. There was the hair straightener and the zig-zag stitching attachment for the sewing machine. There was the gas mask and one of his most significant inventions, the traffic signal. It was a way to prevent collisions created by all those bicycles, animal-powered wagons and new gasoline-powered motor vehicles that were sharing the same roads and streets in the early 1900s.

The seventh of 11 children, born in 1877 to Sidney and Elizabeth Morgan in Paris, Ky., Garrett Augustus Morgan was a kid who showed aptitude and a man who never stopped striving for a better life. An African American whose mother was a slave freed by the Emancipation Proclamation, she taught him the value of goal setting and fighting for what you believed in. Morgan’s education never went beyond elementary school, but before he was 20, he had already moved to Cleveland, Ohio, and found a job working as a sewing-machine repairman. Within 10 years he owned his first company, including a tailor shop that employed 32 people. By 1920, he was a well-known and successful businessman. While other inventors are reported to have created three-position traffic signals, the “Morgan Traffic Signal” was the first to receive a U.S. patent. It was a T-shaped pole that featured three positions: stop; go; and an all-directional stop position, a “third position” that halted traffic to allow pedestrians to cross the streets. Morgan’s “Go” and “Stop” signals were controlled by an electric clock mechanism, systematically raised and lowered at intersections to bring order. At night, the Morgan signal could be positioned in a half-mast posture, alerting drivers to proceed with caution, similar to today’s flashing yellow or red light. Morgan’s device was eventually replaced by the red, yellow and green traffic signals used around the world. In the meantime, he would sell the rights to the General Electric Corporation for $40,000, but it would be decades before he would be recognized for the achievement. Shortly before his death in 1963, at age 86, Morgan was awarded a citation for his traffic signal by the U.S. Government. He gave the world a legacy and a lasting impression, even if recognition didn’t come easily. Think about it the next time you’re stopped at a red light. It is perhaps the greatest compliment we can pay to Morgan.